Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  Claudio looked down at the Lions in his boat and an expression of wonder and affection crossed his face. Charlie warmed to him. The Lions seemed to as well. The Young Lion was kind of trying to peer over the edge of the gondola to see what Claudio was talking about. Charlie made a face at him, as if to say, ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself!’ The Young Lion showed just the tip of his tongue and said, ‘It’s all very well for you – but I want to see this Lion with six wings too!’

  Charlie had to swallow. It was funny when the Young Lion talked to him in front of humans, but it was difficult too because he wanted so much to respond to him, and he couldn’t. The Young Lion was smiling up at him with his cheeky face on. Charlie gave him a stern look and turned away, whistling. He gazed at the palace and the Lion on his column, and then he turned to look the other way. They had reached the end of the Grand Canal, the area called the Bacino, where the waters open out and other islands come into view. But the view was all wrong.

  There, beyond the old customs house, where there should have been the island of the Giudecca, and the churches of the Zitelle, the Redentore, and the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, was a roiling, chaotic, mess. It was a cross between a marine ruin and a building site, a shipwreck of a view. There were cranes on boats and pontoons laden with salvage equipment, massive rusted metal sheets standing like walls in the water, and great glass tunnels, half visible under the water, meandering between the piles of ruin. From time to time the tunnels came up out of the water, like gigantic glass caterpillars, climbing over the heaps of marble and brick, carvings and statues, shattered domes and broken pediments. All around them were the tools of the people still trying to pull up and rescue bits of building from the water: massive chains, engines and generators, little submarines and tugboats, piles of rubber boots and oxygen masks, slings and maps and lists. One or two areas of the lagoon bed had been sectioned off and the water pumped out of them, so that a great empty tank, like an empty lock, stood gaping. One of these contained the tumbled remains of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. It looked like a pile of bleached bones, with workmen moving about on it like flies. Sprouting from the gap, an immense pump was working away, constantly pumping out the creeping sludge and dirty water, like a huge heartbeat. You could hear it.

  Charlie gasped at it.

  ‘They are making a museum out of Venice, under the water,’ said Claudio, glancing up as he deftly tied the gondola to a mooring post. ‘They put these big glass tubes to rest in the mud, and the people will walk through them, gazing out at the underwater ruins. Like fish in a fishtank, with their mouths hanging open. They will put big lights so you can see all the seaweed on our ruins. All the algae, like poisonous slimy cobwebs. So everyone can see nice and clear how the sea has beaten Venice and pushed her down in the mud.’

  The Young Lion’s jaw dropped. ‘I want to go!’ he cried. This time he was not doing it to tease Charlie, he was just so excited about the idea of walking on the seabed, he couldn’t stop himself. Luckily it just sounded like a soft snarl to Claudio and Edward. Claudio glanced at him, before winking at Charlie and stepping out of the boat. As he did so, Edward, who had been listening carefully to the conversation about Venice, but not letting it show, handed him a small package.

  As Claudio headed towards the pink palazzo, Edward, leaning back with his eyes closed, had a very thoughtful look on his face.

  Charlie remembered something he hadn’t thought of for ages: his parents had come here to Venice on their honeymoon. That’s why he knew the view was so wrong. That photo of them smiling with their arms round each other, the photo on the kitchen dresser at home, had been taken somewhere right near here. He recognized it. And he could see that half of that view no longer existed. He could tell from the remains.

  He felt sad to think how they would feel about this mess. They would be sad to see it.

  So where were they, then? He opened his eyes wide, and started to look out for cats. Cats had brought him information ever since he had left home: all down the Thames in London, and up the Seine to Paris. Cats are such dreadful gossips. He must get chatting, as soon as possible, to a cat.

  Chapter Four

  King Boris, it turned out, owned a small palazzo – a palace – on the Grand Canal. It was called the Palazzo Bulgaria, which because this was Italy was pronounced Palatso Bulga-Ria. They’d passed it earlier, and now turned back. Charlie was glad to be out of view of the tumbled remnants of the Giudecca.

  Claudio brought the boat alongside a set of wide stone steps that led directly from the water to a tall, elegant doorway in one of the ice-cream buildings. The bottom of the door was ragged with rot; the sides of the steps dripping with bright-green weed. Looking up at the front of the building, Charlie noticed that the balcony on the first floor was supported by carvings of lions. It felt good to know the story behind them. He smiled at Claudio, who gave him a wink.

  The heavy wooden door in the great arched doorway slid open. Claudio held the boat steady, and the Lions coiled out, up the steps and into the dim shade of the building. Charlie followed, and behind him came Edward, very upright.

  The chamber they entered was high and cool, with dark-red faded walls, and a smooth dark-red floor like one enormous tile, and an air of ancient damp. Charlie felt he had never been in an older place. The curtains at the tall windows on either side of the door were made of heavy dark-red velvet that looked hundreds of years old, held in swags by tassels made of golden wire, which was tarnishing and unravelling. If you were to touch the curtains, the cloth might fall to crimson dust under your fingers. In the distant vault of the ceiling a massive glass chandelier shimmered: just an idea of many pale jewel-coloured drops of glass, heavy with dust, golden candlelight reflecting and refracting from the multitude of surfaces. Staring up at it, Charlie thought he could make out birds and flowers up there, and entwining vines, all with the same low, watery gleam.

  Mingling with the smell of damp was a sweet heavy flower smell. A stone tank almost as tall as Charlie stood on one side of the chamber, full of crimson and white lilies. They gleamed like ghosts in the half-light. There was no other furniture. Way down at the other end of the chamber he could just make out another arched doorway, with a great curved stone shell on the wall above it.

  Charlie wondered if the whole place was going to be like this.

  At that moment another figure entered the room: a long, fair, rather droopy woman with a very long face and pale wide-set eyes, wearing a pale-blue housecoat, denim high-heeled sandals and heavy gold earrings. She looked like a sort of mermaid. She stopped still, gave Charlie a rather rolling-eyed look that made it clear she didn’t think much of him, and then, to Charlie’s surprise, gave Edward a kiss on each cheek.

  ‘Signora Battistuta,’ said Edward. ‘What a pleasure.’

  But she had turned to the Lions, and her jaw fell open. Her rolling eyes filled with fear, but her wide mouth full of long teeth smiled a big smile.

  ‘Bellissimi,’ she drawled, through her nose. ‘Bellissimi! E questo qui, mio Dio!’

  Primo in particular caught her eye. ‘Che bello,’ she said, looking at his size and his strong shoulders. What a beauty. She inquired about why his head was wrapped up, and Edward explained in Italian. The long-faced woman expressed a great desire to see the big Lion’s head. Charlie said nothing. His Italian was just good enough to work out what they were talking about.

  ‘So here are our honoured guests,’ said Edward in English. ‘The creatures can no doubt be made comfortable in the cortile, the child in perhaps the Chinese room. Dinner in half an hour, please. There’s no luggage.’

  Cortile. Cor-tee-leh. Charlie wondered where and what that was.

  Signora Battistuta, ignoring Charlie, and still casting loving glances at the Lions, shrieked, ‘Lavinia! Vieni!’

  At this a small pale child of about six appeared, dressed in some kind of peculiar smock. She took Charlie by the hand to lead him across the immense chamber to an equally immense stai
rcase, up several immense flights of stairs to the top floor, where an endless corridor, red-floored still, and painted with the ancient dark-red paint, brought them to a tall dark doorway. Inside was a different world: a pale-green room with curly furniture made of bamboo, and golden pheasants and silver chrysanthemums painted on the walls. For a moment Charlie thought they were real, that he had burst into some Oriental garden, with dangling fronds and pale-crimson flowers. But it was all painted – even the bamboo furniture wasn’t actually bamboo, but wood carved and painted to look like it. The effect was a little peculiar: as if, if you sat down, you couldn’t be sure the chair was really there. You couldn’t quite be sure, for example, whether a wall was a wall or a long view down over a Chinese park from 300 years ago. Charlie, using his common sense, decided it would be unlikely for there to be a 300-year-old Chinese ornamental park inside this Venetian palace … though, actually, so many astounding things had been happening lately that he couldn’t be sure.

  From the window, there was a clear, immediate view of the chaos of the drowned Giudecca. The last drops of the evening sun blazed fiercely down on the scene, shining hotly back off the surface of the water, so it resembled nothing so much as a hell of molten metal, populated by busy, pointless people. Charlie stared and stared.

  ‘Maledetta Venezia,’ said the pale child. She also talked through her nose.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Charlie, turning round.

  ‘Maledetta, la città,’ said the child. ‘Maledetta!’

  Charlie worked it out: Male = bad, detta = spoken; maledetta = cursed. The child was saying that Venice – Venezia – was cursed.

  Charlie stared out of the window. It was strange how when something beautiful becomes ugly, it is uglier than something that was ugly all along. It was horrible, the sight outside. It did look cursed. It looked like a body with tiny cannibals crawling on its wounds.

  He turned away.

  ‘Bagno,’ said the child. Pronounced ‘Banyo’.

  ‘Eh?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Bagno,’ said the child again, pointing out of the door. She seemed to want Charlie to follow, so he traipsed after her down the corridor before being directed into a small room lined entirely with tiles, and with a big showerhead where the light fitting might normally be.

  ‘Bagno,’ whispered the child again. ‘Adesso.’

  Charlie realized that he was meant to wash, so he steered the child out of the room, with a look, and undressed and gave himself the best wash he’d had since leaving home. The water was hot and strong, and because the whole room was tiled he didn’t have to worry about not getting the water on the floor or anything dull like that – in fact he could splash about as much as he wanted, and sit down, or lie down even, under the shower, which was a lot of fun when he put his face absolutely under where the water came out. So then he started singing all his favourite washing songs (‘Splish splash I was taking a bath!’), and thinking, and wondering if it was disloyal that for once he was glad his mum wasn’t about, as she would make him wash and comb his hair. He hadn’t actually washed it properly since leaving home all those weeks before. It was starting to go into little dreadlocks as it grew, and Charlie supposed that he should try to remember to twiddle the clumps so they went into decent locks. He’d always wanted locks. His dad wouldn’t let him have them though.

  Charlie splashed around some more, aiming the showerhead out of the window to take his mind off his absent parents. He was just wishing he had a friend there with him so they could have a proper water fight when the small voice of Lavinia came through the splashy steamy rumpus he was making. He turned off the water and peeked round the door. The child stood there with a pile of towels in her arms, over which she could only just see. Her eyes were quite pale.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Charlie, taking a towel. The child stepped back, waiting.

  Bother, thought Charlie, seeing that he was meant to come out of the shower now. Was this child going to follow him everywhere, telling him what to do?

  ‘Sono bellissimi, i Leoni,’ said the child. ‘I Leoni. Bellissimi. Piacciono ai Veneziani, i Leoni.’

  Charlie gathered that the child liked the Lions.

  ‘Sí,’ he said, with a smile, not thinking about it. Everyone seemed to like them here.

  He wrapped the towel round himself and trotted back along the corridor, dripping. He hoped the King kept as good food in his palazzo as he did on his train.

  Charlie needn’t have worried. The dinner was completely delicious. First there was a dish of salami and ham: delicately spiced and quite the best he’d ever had. He was happily stuffing himself when he noticed Signora Battistuta’s eyes on him and slowed down. Perhaps this was a first course and he should keep some room.

  Then there was pasta carbonara, Charlie’s favourite, cooked with egg and bacon and cheese, very like how his dad made it. Then there was some fish, white and clean with a pungent green garlicky sauce that looked a little scary but was so delicious Charlie thought he might squeak. Then there was some asparagus. Then there were artichokes. Then there was chicken, fried with rosemary. Then there were potatoes and green beans. Then there was a slice of veal with tuna fish and mayonnaise. Then there was green salad. Then there was a pause … Then there was cheese, then there was tiramisu with its layers of cream and biscuits in coffee and chocolate, and then there were pears cooked in sweet wine, and then there was chocolate, and Edward and Signora Battistuta had tiny glasses of a clear shining drink with a coffee bean floating in it, which they set on fire.

  Charlie could hardly move he was so full. He felt safe and all right, and as soon as he could leave the table, he’d be out finding cats and getting news. Would Edward give him a key, he wondered – or perhaps he would look for cats first on the roof …

  Then Edward said, ‘So, Charlie.’

  The words were heavy, like being pulled back in to finish your homework when you thought you were free to run out and play football. Charlie’s sense of well-being stopped in its tracks.

  ‘Your parents’ asthma cure.’

  Charlie said nothing.

  ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  Charlie felt a little peculiar. It was Edward who had confirmed that the asthma cure was why his parents had been kidnapped. Edward was King Boris’s trusted security chief, and King Boris was Charlie’s trusted patron and helper. But Charlie did not want to talk to Edward about the asthma cure. His inner voice said, quite clearly, no.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  This was only partly true. He didn’t know much about it, and didn’t understand how it worked or what it was based on, but he … well, he had the cure written down in his mother’s blood on a parchment in his bag upstairs. She had written it down months before, and told him to take it with him ‘if he had to go anywhere’. That was the first thing to have happened in this whole drama. She’d fallen off the ladder that day, and hurt her leg. Thinking about it now, he had a sudden, piercing wish for her. He blinked.

  He must take care of that piece of parchment. It was valuable.

  Edward was watching him, not unkindly.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to know about that to find your parents. I’ll get on the case and we’ll find where they are in no time!’

  He was talking like a nursery-school teacher. And while Charlie was glad to have the assistance of the Bulgarian Royal Security Department, he didn’t quite like the idea that Edward was going to find his parents. He, Charlie, was going to find them.

  Or was that just him being proud?

  Of course it didn’t matter how they were found, or who by … he just wanted them, that was all.

  But it did suddenly seem rather out of his power, and he didn’t like that.

  Signora Battistuta clapped her hands and the child Lavinia appeared again. Signora Battistuta rapped out an order and the child again took Charlie by the hand to lead him away. He bade the others goodnight politely, then as they left the room he thought of the Lions.
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  ‘Lavinia,’ he said. ‘I must go and see the Lions and say goodnight to them.’ And discuss developments so far, how to contact Mum and Dad, travel arrangements and so on, he thought, but didn’t mention.

  The child stared at him blankly.

  ‘The Lions,’ said Charlie. ‘Leoni,’ he said, trying to imitate the way Lavinia had said it. ‘Leoni.’ Lay-ony.

  ‘No,’ said Lavinia, and turned on her heel.

  What? Don’t be daft.

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Charlie, pulling away from her grabby little hand.

  ‘No,’ said Lavinia, twice as firmly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie, twice as firmly as that.

  Lavinia burst into a tumble of words in Italian, the main sense of which seemed to be No, Charlie was not going to see the Lions.

  You can imagine how Charlie felt about this. He felt like the Three Musketeers – he and the Lions were all for one and one for all, and not about to be kept apart by a girl.

  ‘Let go of me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to my friends and I don’t want to have to hit you.’

  The child stared at him from her pale eyes and began to make a thin, small noise: a slow, rising wail as if the saddest thing in the world had happened to her.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ said Charlie.

  He was confused. Partly, he hated when girls cried. The only thing he could think to do was hug them, but what if it was someone you hardly knew and didn’t want to hug – Lavinia, for example? And he didn’t want this child’s caterwauling to bring Edward and Signora Battistuta out from their dinner to make a fuss.

  ‘Quiet!’ he said again to Lavinia, urgently, making ‘calm down’ gestures with his hands. ‘OK, OK. Just be quiet.’

  The child whimpered to a halt and gazed at Charlie, fear in her big eyes, her lower lip sticking out and trembling.

  Charlie sighed, and held out his hand for her to take.